was afraid it would give me some pleasure to wake up and hear about it!
Who was there? What did Marcus have to say?"
"Aw, mamma, let me sleep--can't you? I'll get up in a minute."
"So close-mouthed she is--goes to the party with a grand boy like Marcus
and comes home like she was muzzled! Nothing to say! If I was out with a
young man so often I could talk."
"Please, mamma, pull down the shade."
"'Please, mamma, pull down the shade!'" mimicked Mrs. Katzenstein, in a
high falsetto. "After I rush round all day yesterday for the pink wreath
for her hair, that's what I hear the next morning--that's the thanks I
get!"
Birdie pulled the comforter up closer about her ears, and the head on
the rumpled pillow burrowed deeper.
"And such laziness! I been up two hours with my _Kuechen_ and cheese-pie
fixed already for this afternoon, and my daughter sleeps like a lady!
The man that gets her I don't envy!"
The pink-and-white mound on the bed heaved like a ship at sea.
"In a minute, mamma!"
Mrs. Katzenstein jerked up a filmy gown from across the back of a chair
and held it from her at arm's-length.
"Anybody's too good for a girl that ain't got no order! I wonder what
Marcus Gump would say if he knew how you treat your things? Her good
pink dress that I paid twenty dollars for the making alone she throws
round like it cost nothing! Sack-cloth is too good! I don't put it
away--you can wait on yourself."
However, as she spoke Mrs. Katzenstein folded the pink gown, with an
avalanche of lace flowing from the bodice, lengthwise in a drawer and
smothered it with tissue-paper.
"That a girl like that shouldn't be ashamed to let her poor old mother
wait on her!"
"I'd put it away, mamma, if you'd just give me time."
"Tuesday, when I have the ladies and my card party, she sleeps! No
consideration that girl has got for her mother!"
Birdie swung herself to the side of the bed; her wealth of crow-blue
hair fell over her shoulders; sleep trembled on her lashes.
"I'm up, ain't I? Now are you satisfied?"
"For all the help you are to me you might as well stay in bed the rest
of the morning. A girl that can come home from a party and have nothing
to say! But for my part I don't want to know. I guess they had a big
blow-out, didn't they?"
Birdie, high-chested as Juno, with wide, firm shoulders that sloped as
must have sloped the shoulders of Artemis when they tempted Actaeon,
coiled her hair before the mirror with the gesture that has belonged to
women since first they coiled their hair. Her cheeks, fleshly but
fruit-like in their freshness, might have belonged to a buxom nymph of
the grove.
"I wish you could have seen the spread Jeanette had, mamma! I brought
home the recipe for her lobster chops. I'll bet if she had one she had
six different kinds of ice-cream."
With one swoop Mrs. Katzenstein flung the snowy avalanche of pillows and
sheets over the footboard of the bed and opened wide both the windows.
"Tillie," she cried, "bring me the broom. I'll start in Miss Birdie's
room while you finish the breakfast dishes."
"Such an affair as she had! I said to Marcus, on the way home, it could
have been at Delmonico's and not have been finer."
"You don't say so! Such is life, ain't it? We knew Simon Lefkowitz when
he used to come to papa and buy for his stock six shirt-waists at a
time. Then they didn't live in no eighty-dollar apartment. Many's the
morning I used to meet the old lady at market. Who else was there?"
"Who? Let me see! Gertie Glauber was there. She had on that dress
Laevitt made; and, believe me, I liked mine better. Tekla Stein and
Morris Adler--you know those Adlers in the millinery business?"
"Nice people!"
"You couldn't get a pin between Tekla and him--honest, how that girl
worked for him! Selma Blumenthal was there, too, and I must say she
looked grand--those eyes of hers and that figure! But what those fellows
can see in her so much I don't know. Honest, mamma, she's such a
dumbhead she can't talk ten words to a boy."
"Girls don't need so much brains. I always say it scares the men off.
Look at Gussie Graudenheimer--high school she had to have yet! What good
does it do? Not a thing does that girl have--and her mother worries
enough about it, too."
"That's what Marcus says about her--he says she's too smart for him; he
says he'd rather have a girl nice and sweet than too smart."
Mrs. Katzenstein leaned her broom in a corner, daubed at the mantelpiece
with a flannel cloth, and regarded her daughter surreptitiously through
the mirror.
"You had a nice time with Marcus last night? You've been out with him
five times and still have nothing to say."
"What's there to say, mamma? He's a fine boy and shows a girl a grand
time. Last night it was sleeting just a little, and he had to have a
taxi-cab. Honest, it was a shame for the money! Take it from me, Morris
Adler walked Tekla. I saw them going to the Subway."
"Well, what's what? Is that the end of it?"
"Aw, mamma, how should I know? I can't read a fellow's mind! All I know
is he--he's coming over to-night."
"Don't you bother with putting those slippers away, Birdie; you just lie
round and take it easy this morning. When a girl's going to have company
in the evening she should rest up--me and Tillie can do this little
work."
Birdie wrapped herself in a crimson kimono plentifully splotched with
large pink and blue and red and green chrysanthemums and snuggled into a
white wicker rocking-chair. Her lips, warmly curved like a child's,
were parted in a smile.
"I don't want breakfast," she announced. "Irma Friedman quit it and lost
five pounds in two weeks."
"Papa and me were saying last night, Birdie, we aren't in a hurry to get
rid of you; but such a young man as Marcus Gump any girl can be lucky to
get. Aunt Batta said she heard for sure Loeb Brothers are going to make
him manager of their new factory--think once, manager and three thousand
a year!--just double his salary! Think of putting a young man like him
in that big Newark factory!"
"It's surely grand; but for what does it have to be in a place like
Newark?"
"Papa says that boy put March Hare boys' pants on the market for the
Loebs. How grand for his mother and all, her a widow, to have such a
son! Wasn't I right to invite her this afternoon?"
"I'm the last one to say a word against Marcus. You ought to heard them
last night talking on the side about him and his new position he might
get--just grand! Jeanette's got a new stitch, mamma. It's not like
eyelet or French, but sort of between the two, and grand for
centerpieces. I could embroider a dresser-cover in a week."
"I thought I'd have sardines this afternoon instead of cold tongue. For
why should I make Mrs. Cohen feel bad that we don't buy at their
delicatessen?"
"I'll fix the cut-glass bowl with fruit for the center of the table."
"It's like papa and me said last night, Birdie--a girl makes no mistake
when she follows her parents' advice. Marcus Gump's own mother told me
when I was introduced to her at Hirsch's yesterday afternoon, you're the
first girl he ever took out more than two or three times."
Birdie snuggled deeper in her chair and stretched her arms with the
gesture of Aurora greeting the day.
"Mamma," she said, softly, "what do you think he--he said I looked like
last night?"
"What?"
"He said--he said--"
Mrs. Katzenstein paused in her dusting.
"He--said--Aw, mamma, I can't go telling it--so silly it sounds."
"_Ach!_ For nonsense I got no time--such silliness for two grown-up
children! That gets you nowhere. Plain talking is what does it."
But suddenly the thridding and thudding of Mrs. Katzenstein's
machinations died down. It was as if a steamboat had turned off its
power and drifted quietly into its slip. She tiptoed to the table and
straightened the cover, arranged the shades until they were precisely
even one with the other, gave the new-made bed a final pat, and tiptoed
to the door.
"I forgot to order my finger-rolls for this afternoon," she said.
* * * * *
At two o'clock guests began to arrive. A heavy sleet clattered against
the windows; the sky and the apartment houses across the way were
shrouded in cold gray. Birdie drew the shades and tweaked on the
electric lights; tables were grouped about the parlor, laid out with
decks of cards, pencils and paper, and small glass dishes of candies.
Mother and daughter had emerged from the morning like moths out of a
chrysalis. Mrs. Katzenstein's black crepe-de-Chine, with cut-jet
trimmings, trailed after her when she walked. She greeted her guests
with effulgence and enthusiasm.
"Come right in, Carrie! Tillie, take Mrs. Ginsburg's umbrella. I bet you
got your winning clothes on to-day, Carrie; I can always tell it when
you wear your willow plume and furs."
Carrie Ginsburg flopped a remonstrating and loose-wristed hand at Mrs.
Katzenstein.
"Go 'way! That glass pickle-dish I won at Silverman's three weeks ago is
the last luck I had. Your mamma's the winner--ain't she, Birdie? At my
house she always carries off the prize. I bet I helped furnish her
china-closet."
"You should worry, Mrs. Ginsburg, when your husband owns the Cut-Glass
Palace!"
"You can believe me or not, Birdie, but Aaron's that particular if I
take so much as a pin-tray out of stock he charges it up! When you get
such an honest husband it's almost as bad as the other way. He don't get
thanks for it."
"Birdie, take Mrs. Ginsburg in the middle room and help off with her
things. Hello, Mrs. Silverman! You're a sight for sore eyes. Why wasn't
you down at the Ladies' Auxiliary on Wednesday? It was grand! Doctor
Lippman spoke so beautiful, and there was coffee in the Sunday-school
rooms after."
Mrs. Silverman deposited a large and elaborate muff on the table and
unbuttoned her full-length fur coat.
"Such a day as it was Wednesday! Even to-day my Meena begged me not to
come out. 'Mamma,' she said, 'to go out in such sleet and rain for a
card party--it's a shame!' Then my Louis telephoned up from the store
that if I went out I should take a cab. What that boy don't think of!"
"He's a fine boy, Mrs. Silverman; and such a sweet girl he married."
"It ain't for the money, Mrs. Katzenstein--believe me, it ain't; but why
should I take a cab when it's only one block away to the Subway? I leave
that to my children. Meena's the stylish one of our family--when it so
much as sprinkles that girl has to have a cab."
"Come right in, Mrs. Gump; I knew you wouldn't be afraid of a little
weather. Here, let me take your umbrella."
"It's a fine weather for ducks, Mrs. Katzenstein."
"Just you go right in the middle room with Birdie and make yourself at
home."
"Come right with me, Mrs. Gump; me and mamma was so afraid maybe you
wouldn't come."
Birdie flitted in and out from parlor to bedroom; the languor of the
morning had fallen from her.
"Now, mamma, you and the ladies sit down at your tables. That's right,
Mrs. Mince--you and Mrs. Kronfeldt play opposites, and Mrs. Ginsburg and
Aunt Batta. Don't get excited, mamma. I'll fix the ladies in their
places. Here, Mrs. Weissenheimer, you sit here between Mrs. Gump and
mamma."
"Look at that goil!" exclaimed Mrs. Mince, seating herself and taking a
pinch of Birdie's firmly molded arm between thumb and forefinger. "I
wish you'd look how thin she's got. Ain't that grand, though! I bet you
don't drink water with your meals?"
"Not a drop, Mrs. Mince; and no starchy food; no--"
"Mrs. Mince," interrupted Mrs. Ginsburg, dealing the cards with skill
and rapidity, "Doctor Adelberg told my sister-in-law that rolling on the
floor two hundred times morning and night had got this diet business
beat. All he says you got to be careful about is no water at meals. But
with me it's like Aaron says--I keep him busy filling up my glass at the
table."
"I wish you'd see my Birdie diet, Carrie! The grandest things she won't
eat! Last night for supper we had potato _Pfannkuechen_, that would melt
in your mouth. Not one will she touch! Her papa says how she lives he
don't know."
"I wish my Marcus would diet a little. I always say to him he's just a
little bit too stout--he takes after his poor father," said Mrs. Gump.
"You can believe me or not, Mrs. Gump; but, so sure as my name is Mince,
I got down from a hundred and ninety-two to a hundred and seventy-four
in two months! Reducing ain't so bad when you get used to it."
"Honest now, Mrs. Mince, how I wish my Marcus had such a determination!
But that boy loves to eat--Didn't you see me discard, Mrs.
Weissenheimer?"
"Say, it wasn't so easy! How I worked you can ask my husband. I bend for
thirty minutes when I get up in the morning; and if you think it's
easy, try it--a cup of hot water and a piece of dry toast for breakfast;
lettuce salad, no oil, for lunch; and a chop with dry toast for supper.
What I suffered nobody knows!"
"Batta, don't you see I lead from weakness?"
"I wish you could see my husband's partner's daughter!" quoth Mrs.
Kronfeldt. "I met her on Fifty-third Street last week, and she was so
thin I didn't know her--massage and diet did it. She ain't feeling so
well; but she looks grand--not a sign of hips!"
From an adjoining table Mrs. Silverman waved a plump and deprecatory
hand.
"Ladies, don't talk to me about dieting! I know, because I've tried it.
Now I eat what I please. It's standing up twenty minutes after meals
that does the reducing. Last summer at Arverne every lady in the hotel
did it, and never did I see anything like it! Take my word for it that
when my husband came down for Saturday and Sunday he didn't know me!"
"_Ach_, Mrs. Silverman, that was almost a grand slam! You should watch
my discard!"
"When I came home I had to have two inches taken out of every
skirt-band."
"You don't mean it!"
"Feel, Birdie, my arm. Last summer your thumbs wouldn't have met."
"I said to mamma when we saw you at the matinee last week, Mrs.
Silverman, you're grand and thin!"
"You try a little lemon in your hot water, Birdie. But you're not too
stout--I should say not! You're grand and tall and can stand it."
"Grand and tall!" echoed Mrs. Gump.
"It's a wonder she isn't as thin as a match, Mrs. Gump, the way that
girl does society! Last night it was two o'clock when she got home from
Jeanette Lefkowitz's party."
"I wish you'd heard the grand things Marcus said about you this morning
at breakfast, Miss Birdie! I bet your ears were ringing. It's not often
that he talks, either, when he's been out."
"What's this grand news I hear, Mrs. Gump, about your son being taken in
the firm and made manager of the new Loeb factory? It's wonderful for a
boy to work himself up with a firm like that."
"There's nothing sure about it yet, Mrs. Silverman. How such things get
out I don't know. Marcus is a good boy; and, believe me or not, we think
he's got a future with the firm. But you know how it is--there's nothing
settled yet, and I don't believe in counting your chickens before they
are hatched."
"I wish it to you, Mrs. Gump," purred Mrs. Katzenstein. "I wish the good
luck to you."
"You don't make it diamonds, Mrs. Kronfeldt, unless you got to."
"Who made that dress for you, Birdie? It fits fine."
"That's the dressmaker on Lenox Avenue I was telling you about, Mrs.
Adler," replied Mrs. Katzenstein, answering for her daughter. "Me and
Birdie go to her for everything. Look at that fit and all!"
"Grand!"
"I'll give you her address if you don't tell everybody. You know how it
is when you begin to recommend a dressmaker--up in their prices they go,
and that's all the thanks you get."
"You are safe with me, Mrs. Katzenstein."
"Come here, Birdie! Turn round for Mrs. Adler--only twelve dollars to
make with findings!"
"I'll take her my blue cloth," said Mrs. Adler.
"You won't regret it. Just tell her I sent you. If you want you can have
the address, too, Mrs. Gump."
"I got a compliment for you about the dress you wore last night, Miss
Birdie. Wonderful! No trump! This morning at breakfast Marcus said lots
about your pretty dress and pretty ways; and for him to say that is a
lot; not ten words can I get out of him, as a rule."
"I wish you could hear Birdie, too, Mrs. Gump! Believe me, she thinks
he's a fine boy--and how hard that girl is to suit you wouldn't believe
it!"
"Aw, mamma!"
"Change partners, ladies!"
Birdie hurried out into the dining-room; a flush branded her
cheeks--Daphne fleeing from Apollo could not have been more deliciously
agitated.
"Tillie," she directed, "you can make the coffee now and put the
finger-rolls on."
A snowy round table was spread beneath a large, opaline dome of lights,
which showered over the feast like a spray of stars; and in the center a
mammoth cut-glass bowl of fruit, overflowing its sides with trailing
bunches of hothouse grapes, and piled to a fitting climax of oranges,
peeled in fanciful flower designs; fat bananas, with half the skin
curled backward; and apples so firm and red that they might have been
lacquered. The guests filed in.
"We haven't got much, ladies--Tillie, bring in some of the chairs from
the parlor--but Birdie says it isn't style to have such big lunches any
more. Sit right down here, Mrs. Gump, between me and Birdie. Now,
ladies, help yourselfs and don't be bashful. Start the sardines round,
Batta."
"What a pretty centerpiece, Mrs. Katzenstein!"
"Do you like it, Mrs. Kronfeldt? Birdie made it when the whip-stitch
first came out. We got the doilies, too."
"I think it's good for a girl to be so practical," said Mrs. Gump,
squeezing an arc of a lemon over her sardine. "If I had a daughter she
should know how to do things round the house, even if she didn't have to
use it."
"I'm not the kind to brag on my children; but, if I do say so myself, my
girls can turn their hands to anything. If the day ever comes--God
forbid!--when they should need it they'll know how."
"Exactly."
"When my Ray got engaged she made every monogram for her trousseau. I
can prove it by Batta what a trousseau that girl had--and she made every
monogram for every piece. She never comes home with the children to
visit that she don't say: 'Mamma, thank Heaven, Abe is doing so grand
and I don't need to--but there ain't a woman in Kansas City can beat me
on housekeeping.'"
"This is delicious grape-jelly, Mrs. Katzenstein."
"That's some more of Birdie's doings. Honest, you may believe me or not,
Mrs. Gump, but I have to fight to keep that girl away from the kitchen
and housework! Yesterday it was all I could do to get her to go to Rosie
Freund's linen shower; she wanted to stay home and help me with to-day's
_Kuechen_. This morning, after last night, she was up before eight! Such
a child!"
"I suppose you heard of poor Flora Freund's trouble, didn't you,
Salcha?"
"Yes, Batta; you could have knocked me down with a feather! But Mr.
Katzenstein always said the new store was too big. And such a failure,
too!"
"I guess Flora won't have so many airs now! Down to her feet she got a
sealskin coat this winter."
"I always say to Mr. Katzenstein we ain't such high-fliers, but we are
steady. Try some of that pickled herring, Mrs. Gump. I put it up
myself."
"I guess you heard of Stella Loeb's engagement, Birdie, didn't you?"
inquired Mrs. Mince, spreading the grape-jelly atop a finger-roll. "To a
Mr. Steinfeld from Cleveland."
"Yes, I hear she's doing grand; but so is he. To get in with the Loeb
Brothers' crowd ain't so bad."
"Yes, they're all grand matches!" exclaimed Mrs. Ginsburg. "It's just
like Meena says; they're all gold pocket-book and automobile matches
when they're with out-of-town men; but Cleveland--I don't wish it to her
to live in Cleveland--not that I've ever been there, but I don't envy
girls that marry out of New York."
"My Ray's got it grand in Kansas City! I wish you could see her closet
room and her pantry--as big as my whole kitchen! A girl could do worse
than Kansas City or Cleveland."
"I always say," remarked Birdie, "when I get engaged it makes no
difference where he goes."
"That's the right way to feel, Miss Birdie. Some day, if Marcus should
ever marry--and I'm the last one to stand in his way--if he gets his
promotion to the Newark factories and the girl he picks out don't like
Newark, then she's not the right girl," said Mrs. Gump.
"Newark," said Mrs. Katzenstein, "is a grand little town. Whenever we
pass through on our way to Kansas City Birdie always says what a sweet
little town it is. Mrs. Silverman, have another cup of coffee."
The short winter day sloughed off suddenly, and it was dark when they
rose from the table. "So late!" exclaimed Mrs. Mince. "I got a girl that
can't so much as put on the potatoes. Honest, the servant problem gets
woise and woise."
"Sh-h-h!" cautioned Mrs. Katzenstein, placing her forefinger across her
lips and glancing warningly toward the kitchen. "Tillie," she whispered,
"ain't such a jewel neither; but she's honest, and I'm glad enough to
have anybody these days. Birdie, she's always fussing with me because I
do too much in the kitchen; but why should my husband have his coffee
so it don't suit him? Children don't understand--they're too much for
style."
"In my little flat, with Etta married and gone," chimed in Mrs. Adler,
"I'm better off without a girl. I got a woman to come in and clean three
times a week, and me and Ike go out for our supper. I got it better
without the worry of a girl."
"I give you right. If I'd listen to Marcus I'd keep a servant, too--a
servant when I got my troubles without one!"
"Ain't that jus' like papa, Birdie? He always says: 'Salcha, you take it
easy now; when one girl isn't enough keep two'--as if I didn't have
enough troubles already!"
"Good-by, Mrs. Katzenstein!" Mrs. Kronfeldt inserted a
tissue-paper-wrapped package carefully within her muff. "You got good
taste in prizes--salts and peppers always come in handy."
"That's the way me and Birdie felt when we picked them out--you can't
have too many of them."
"And, Birdie, you come over with your mamma some afternoon when Ruby's
home. That girl with her society and engagements--I never see her
myself! This afternoon she saw vaudeville with Sol Littleberger. He's in
off the road."
"Birdie had an engagement this afternoon, too, with a traveling-man; but
I always like to have her home when I entertain."
"I had a lovely afternoon, Mrs. Katzenstein. You and Miss Birdie must
come and see me--One Hundred and Forty-first Street ain't so far away
that you can't get to us."
"Me and Birdie can come almost any afternoon, Mrs. Gump, except Saturday
we go to the matinee--we're great ones for Saturday matinee."
"That's what I call too bad! On Saturday Marcus comes home early, and he
could see you home."
"Well," said Mrs. Katzenstein, plucking a thread off Mrs. Gump's
coat-sleeve, "it's not like there weren't plenty more Saturdays in the
year. I got enough vaudeville shows this year anyway."
"After the third number I always say, 'Mamma, let's go!'--don't I,
mamma?" said Birdie.
"We can come next Saturday, all right, Mrs. Gump; but mind, don't you go
to any trouble for us--Birdie's on a diet, and all I want is a cup of
coffee. It makes my husband so mad when I come home and got no
appetite."
"Good-by, Mrs. Ginsburg. _Ach_, that's right--I forgot; Birdie, write
down Maggie's address for Mrs. Ginsburg. You try her once. She brings
home the clothes so white it's a pleasure to put them away. Tell her I
recommended her. I wish you could see Birdie's shirt-waists come home
from the wash--just like new!"
"I'll try her next week," said Mrs. Ginsburg, buckling her fur
neckpiece.
"Give Adolph my love, Batta. Birdie, help Aunt Batta with her coat. Come
over some evening soon. Good-by, ladies! Come again. Good-by! Be careful
of that step there, Mrs. Gump. Good-by!"
Mrs. Katzenstein clicked the door softly shut and turned to her
daughter. There were high red spots on her cheeks.
"Well," she sighed, "I'm glad that's over."
"Me, too; and I'm sorry enough that Mrs. Gump didn't win those
salt-cellars."
"Such a grand woman as she is--plain and unassuming! He left her real
comfortable, too--not much, but enough for herself. But, to look at her
in that plain black dress, you wouldn't think that she had a son that
might be made manager of the Loeb factory, would you?"
"It is so," agreed Birdie, nibbling from a half-emptied candy-dish on
one of the tables; "and that's just the way with Marcus last night--it
was only accident that he let out that him and Louis Epstein might have
an automobile."
"Plain and unassuming people!" Mrs. Katzenstein exclaimed.